


A Reason to Care

by Myricle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Broken Masquerade, Gangs, Government, Intrigue, Legilimency, Police, Smart Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 17:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12280821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myricle/pseuds/Myricle
Summary: 12 years after the Antimagic Act started a war that ended organised magic, it is finally repealed. Wizards and witches are a dying breed, and even though reparations are underway, the only place magic still thrives is on the opposite side of the law. Muggles and untrained wizards toy with potions and spells to make money, struggling to recapture the knowledge lost in the purge. Harry Potter, now 31, is one of the last true wizards left.





	A Reason to Care

When the Muggles found me, I was standing in line at the supermarket.

A Muggle I had once known recognised me, and contacted the authorities immediately. Several police officers arrived and politely escorted me out to a waiting van. I didn’t resist, just as I didn’t bother asking whether my groceries would be delivered to me later.

Oddly enough, the officers seemed unnerved by my passivity. I sat in the van with a man on either side, their wrists handcuffed to mine. Nobody had charged me with anything yet. In fact, they seemed determined not to say anything at all.

Halfway to the station, I heard the passenger’s phone ring. A minute later, I felt the van lurch as we hastily changed directions. Clearly, news of my capture had reached certain ears.

We arrived at a nondescript two story building on the outskirts of London. The neighbourhood was dull, and more than one house seemed to be lacking occupants.

The van pulled into an underground parking area and passed through a security checkpoint before coming to a stop. I was searched once more and forced to change into clothes they had prepared for me. Sweatpants and a plain white shirt replaced my navy blue jacket and jeans. Again, I didn’t ask if I would get them back.

I was taken to an interview room with two-way glass and three security cameras in the corners. There was a metal table and two chairs waiting. I took one of them and sat down slowly, resting my handcuffed hands on the table.

I bowed my head and waited. Waiting was an art form, and I was a master. Hours would drift by as easily as falling asleep. This time, however, I only waited for fifteen minutes before the door opened again.

The woman had dark eyes and high cheekbones that made her look like royalty. Her caramel skin was perfumed with something faint and professional, and her straight dark hair was tied back in a bun. She sat across from me and met my eyes, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

“Hello, Harry.”

“Charlotte,” I replied.

* * *

At one point during the horrifying years after the Antimagic Act had been implemented, I was on the run in Muggle society. After a particularly nasty incident in which an entire neighbourhood was destroyed, I ran into Charlotte, a then-nineteen year old waitress in a café in the middle of London. She was the first Muggle not to call the cops on me or try to kill me herself.

We even travelled together for a little bit. I showed her the other side of the war, the one the Muggle authorities were suppressing. Magical children, refugees in their own country, scared and confused about the sudden, inexorably approaching threat of the Muggles. Muggles who had married into magical families, refusing to leave their loved ones.

I think I reached her, but I guess it wasn’t enough. The Act was repealed twelve years too late.

* * *

“Bit of a step up from waitressing,” I said.

Charlotte smiled wryly. “It wasn’t a direct transition. How are you?”

I stared at her until her smile flickered and died.

She breathed out slowly. “I know it has been hard–” she cut herself off, perhaps realising how stupid she would sound.

“I _don’t_ know how hard it has been for you over the past twelve years, and before,” she tried instead. “The horrific way you and your people were treated after the Antimagic Act was implemented will be a source of national shame for centuries to come. A society ruled by fear and anger is one capable of extreme acts of violence that–”

“Is this a speech to the UN?” I said. “What do you want from me?”

Charlotte seemed to lose her flow for a moment, but quickly regained it. “We are part of the new government department known as the Ministry of Magic. It is named after the magical government that existed before the Act, but contains almost no actual wizards, and certainly none with proper training. Right now, criminal elements are using magic to make money and terrorise innocents. We can’t effectively counter them without magic of our own, and while we have a sizeable collection of artefacts, we have very few people who can use them.”

“What do you want from me?” I repeated.

“I want you to join our investigative team as a magical specialist to help us solve crimes committed through magical means.”

“You’ve got some strange recruiting methods,” I said, jingling my handcuffs a little. “What’s the alternative? The gas chamber?”

Charlotte winced very slightly. She withdrew a tiny key from her pocket and freed my hands.

“The only reason you were picked up by police is because you’re an unregistered wizard,” she explained. “When the Act was repealed, all remaining wizards and witches were supposed to report to the government census so that we could grant them citizenship and reparations. Very few turned up.”

“You don’t say.”

“The fact remains that you were technically breaking the law by not registering. In today’s pro-magic social climate, I doubt any judge would dare punish you for it, but you were running the risk of being lumped in with the criminal elements I mentioned earlier.”

“So by way of reparations, you’re drafting me into a police unit as a pet wizard to help you fix your own mistakes?”

“I’m _asking_ you to work with us for the good of innocent people. Everything we know about your personality before the Act and after paints you as a compassionate man who wants to protect people from evil. Right now, people are being seduced and raped through the use of Amortentia, a love potion. Medicinal potions are being mass-produced and adjusted to cause dependency, creating dozens of new drugs, each worse than heroin. Anyone with even the slightest amount of ability is being recruited by gangs to mix the more difficult potions and learn to cast the most profitable spells, like Gemino. It’s almost fortunate there are so few fully-educated wizards and witches left, because they could very well upturn society all over again.”

I’d hear rumours of such things, but it was different hearing them from an authority. Even if the authority in question was a woman I had once known intimately.

I silently initiated my Legilimency. After twelve years, I was incredibly proficient at wandless magic, and the Mind Arts were the most useful when it came to blending in with Muggle society.

Charlotte was wearing a hidden necklace with a Shield Charm on it. I broke it and slipped into her mind. Only a skilled wizard would have been able to detect that anything had happened, and like she said, there weren’t many left.

Charlotte’s mind was interesting when contrasted with her composed demeanour. I saw that some of her reactions, like the wince, were forced with the intention of making me feel as though I had power over her. Apparently, a colleague had advised her prior to our meeting that due to living life on the run, I might respond well to being given power, or at least might accidentally reveal a little more of my intentions and motivations.

Her statement about the criminal use of magical compounds and potions rang true, however. She believed it wholeheartedly, and I could see memories of statistics and reports that formed the basis of that belief.

I examined her emotions. Like me, she had immediately remembered our short time together many years ago, and, also like me, she had silently judged my appearance and decided I was still attractive enough not to regret our previous encounter. That said, phrases like ‘dead inside’ floated to the forefront of her mind when she met my eyes, and a fair amount of pity was kept carefully contained behind a wall of professionalism that wasn’t nearly as strong as she thought it was.

I withdrew from Charlotte’s mind. Barely a second had passed.

“So this is how modern law enforcement will work,” I said idly. “Both the criminals and the police scramble to capture as many magical folk as they can. We go from being lepers that people are encouraged to kill, to being chained dogs fighting for whoever holds our leash.”

“That’s not how we would treat you,” Charlotte said firmly. “Magical folk have human rights now. You would be an employee with a salary and the right to report others for anti-magical behaviour.” She leaned forward intently. “This entire Ministry is made up of people who think what happened to wizarding kind was horrifying and disgusting. _We are on your side,_ Harry. Work with us.”

She made a good pitch, I had to give her that. But there was one more thing I had to test.

“And if I want to stop? Leave? Resign and disappear?” I asked.

Charlotte hesitated, and I gave her a nasty smile.

“You will be allowed to resign just like any other employee,” Charlotte said resolutely, as if covering for her hesitance. “I give you my word.”

I was tempted to use Legilimency to see what her word was worth, or at the very least discover what made her hesitate. I decided not to.

“Well, it would be unneighbourly for me to refuse such a friendly job offer,” I said dryly.

Charlotte blinked. I wondered if it was forced.

“Just like that?” she asked.

“Sure.” I smiled again, and she turned pale. “After all, even if you’re lying, what more could you possible take from me?”

* * *

“You can’t do that!” Harley squeaked, shaking his hand so the bracelet jingled. “I have a Shield Charm Bracelet! It cost four-hundred pounds!”

“You have a four-hundred pound piece of plastic,” I replied.

The operations centre of the Ministry of Magic was loud and stuffy. The converted office space was a far cry from the massive black marble halls of the previous Ministry, and it was about as magical as a toothbrush.

I stood beside Charlotte before a long line of people claiming to have magical artefacts or ability, desperate for rewards or reparations or even just a job in the new Ministry. As the sole wizard employee, it was my job to sort out the liars from the idiots. There were no other types.

Harley, an overweight banker with a bald head, had come to us to verify his most recent purchase: a silver bracelet with lapis-lazuli stones glued to it. I immediately identified that not only was it completely magically inert, but the silver wasn’t even real – it was just painted brass.

As the despondent banker was led away, yelling about cheats and lying advertisements, I turned to stare down at Charlotte.

“You said we’d be helping people,” I said.

She remained serene and professional despite my practiced glare.

“We are. This is just one of the many ways we’re helping people adjust to a post-Act society. They need to know if they’re being swindled, and if we’re lucky, we might find someone with the ability that you’ll be able to train as an apprentice.”

“You’ll need to buy another leash if we do,” I replied, tugging at my tie to loosen it further.

“Employees must adhere to the dress code. We’re a government department, remember. We have standards to uphold.”

My first week in the Ministry of Magic had been painfully dull. I didn’t want to know the rest of Charlotte’s team, but they continued to make awkward extensions of friendship. I was staying in the living quarters that were on the second floor, but most of them were driving to work every day.

I knew a lot about my co-workers, of course. I had taken to using Legilimency on each of them to see who I should be most concerned about. A few were in the Ministry because they wanted to help restore the magical community and prevent the abuse of magic, but most saw it as a good career step, and two were moles feeding information to two separate gangs.

I didn’t want to reveal my ability, so I let the moles continue. By now, everyone involved in the magical underworld was likely aware of the fully-trained wizard working with the Ministry. Indeed, through the moles’ memories, I witnessed several discussions about my identity and the need to assassinate or bribe me before I tore their operations to pieces. I took to putting Shield Charms on my clothes, which would stop any attack, magical or otherwise. Only another trained wizard would be able to break through.

The downside of it was that I set off the Magical Detection Device when I showed up in the operations centre one morning. The men at the security checkpoint didn’t seem to know what to do.

“Do you, um, have anything magical on you?” one of them had asked.

“I must have stepped in a puddle of magic on the way to work,” I had replied. They weren’t amused. In the end, I explained that I had applied a Warming Charm to myself because the heater in my room was terrible at its job.

On the day Harley and the other idiots showed up with their trinkets and wild tales of magical happenings, the Detection Device had been disabled to prevent it from beeping every few seconds as I examined each object.

Next came an excitable-looking mother dragging her teenage son behind her. He had lanky hair that fell over one eye, and walked with that awkward lurch boys get when they’re caught between growth spurts. He was around fifteen, and his entire face went red when he noticed me watching him.

“What can we help you with?” asked Charlotte.

“I think my son might be magical,” the mother said emphatically.

“Have you seen any evidence of magical ability in him? Strange events, things nobody could explain?”

“Well, not – not _exactly,_ but, well, he’s gay, and I just thought–”

“ _Mum!”_ said the boy, his voice cracking.

“To my knowledge, there is no correlation between sexual orientation and magical ability,” Charlotte said patiently.

I decided to take a gander at the boy’s mind just to make sure, and found nothing but the ordinary hormone-fuelled sex-and-sadness jumble that most teenage minds were made of.

“He’s not magical,” I said. That put an end to that, and the mother, her enthusiasm fading, was led away by the boy, who was angrily muttering to her under his breath.

Charlotte gave me an apologetic glance before waving forward the next person in line.

A man walked up to us with a smile, pulled a gun from his pocket, and levelled it at my face.

Before screams even had time to leave the throats of the line of witnesses, before Charlotte could do more than twitch her hand towards her own firearm, before anyone or anything at all could move to interrupt the assassination attempt, I broke into the man’s mind with Legilimency.

His name was Matthew Polson. A drug addict who had kicked the habit, only to be suckered in by an illegal potions dealer who gave him a whole different kind of addiction. A steady supply of the Elixir to Induce Euphoria meant that Polson lived every day in heaven. Even now, as he jeopardised his freedom by trying to kill someone in the middle of a government building, all he could think about was how simple his task was, and how much Elixir had been promised to him by the potions dealer.

I could see a dozen similar crimes, the guilt of which forced Polson back to his dealer so they could take his self-disgust and horror away with another sip. They used him to do their dirty work and made him love every second.

I withdrew from is mind, and with the tiniest flicker of magic, turned his safety on. The gun clicked, and Polson glanced at it pleasantly.

Charlotte’s gun was out, but there were civilians behind Polson, so she hesitated. It turned out to be the right move, because another member of the team slammed into Polson in an enormous tackle, disarming and pinning him down.

What I found interesting was that the team member in question was one of the moles. I utilised my Legilimency again to discover the reasoning behind his intervention. It seemed that the gang he reported to was a rival of the one Polson’s dealer belonged to. While Polson’s people had decided my death was the safest route, the mole’s gang were still interested in paying me off somehow.

The mole’s name was Blake Carter, and as he handcuffed Polson, he was inwardly patting himself on the back for being such a go-getter, not to mention solidifying his role as a trustworthy member of the team. It was almost funny.

* * *

Polson sat in an interview room like the one I had first been brought to. Today, I got to see it from behind the glass. Charlotte stood beside me, while Carter, as the hero of the day, got the honour of beginning the interrogation.

Four hours had passed since the incident, and Polson was entering withdrawal from lack of Elixir. His smile was beginning to slip from his face, and nervous ticks began to manifest.

“H-How much longer will I be here?” asked Polson. “I really have to see someone.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Carter said slowly, as though talking to a child. “You tried to kill someone.”

Polson began chewing his lip. His eyes were unfocused, darting around the plain room as though looking for Elixir.

“Drugs or potions?” Charlotte asked me quietly.

“Who knows?” I replied with a shrug.

Charlotte gave me a side look. “He tried to _kill_ you. I would think this would prove suitably engaging for you after all the boredom lately.”

“My life has pretty much consisted of people trying to kill me. This isn’t new.”

“Then in the interests of preventing other people from having such a dangerous life, help me trace this murder attempt back to its source.” To her credit, Charlotte was being quite patient with me considering how deliberately obnoxious I was being.

“What do you want me to do? Read his mind?”

“Can you?” she shot back.

I was silent for a moment, considering. “I can tell you if he lies,” I said. She nodded, and I was grateful she didn’t ask whether that was the extent of my ability.

The two-way mirror was no impediment to my Legilimency, and I slipped into Polson’s crumbling mind with ease.

Carter flicked elaborately through a number of files, making a show of it and increasing the tension in the room. He was a good actor. Probably why he was chosen to be a mole.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t actually kill anyone today, isn’t it?” Carter asked mildly.

Polson nodded hurriedly.

“You seem like someone who was caught between a rock and a hard place, and you were forced to make a decision that you wouldn’t ordinarily make.”

Again, Polson nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with this optimistic perspective on his screwed-up personality.

“So really, the blame for what happened today shouldn’t rest on your shoulders, should it?” Carter said reasonably. “Who told you to kill the wizard?”

Polson opened his mouth and made a choking noise, then shut it and shook his head rapidly.

“I don’t know,” he wheezed.

“Lie,” I said. Charlotte nodded but did nothing. That lie was too obvious to get excited about.

Carter had seen through it too. He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, an almost fatherly look of concern crossing his features.

“Polson,” he said sternly, “I want to help you, but trust is a two-way street. Who told you to kill the wizard?”

Again, Polson made the choking noise, and again he shook his head. He was close to tears.

“I don’t know!” he wailed.

Of course, I knew. The dealer gave him the order, but it was likely from a higher member of the gang. There was no way I could reveal the information without disclosing how I obtained it.

Carter pressed him for another half an hour, but didn’t get anywhere. Polson was eager to answer any question that didn’t compromise his employer, but stopped abruptly before giving anything useful.

“Damn it,” Charlotte muttered. “I don’t want this to be a dead end. We have to get him talking.” She pulled out a phone and made a call. I caught the word ‘Veritaserum’ in the ensuing conversation.

Sure enough it wasn’t long before Carter left the interview room and returned with a couple of other team members who restrained Polson as Carter spilled a few drops into the addict’s mouth.

“Veritaserum is allowed by the government?” I asked.

Charlotte nodded grimly. “With special permission, it is. You must understand how valuable a reliable truth serum is.”

I said nothing, and turned to watch the madness.

Polson was sobbing and struggling to wrench himself free of his restraints. Even Carter seemed a little disturbed by the display, though he pulled himself together quickly.

“Who told you to kill the wizard?” he asked.

Polson cried harder as his lips formed words he clearly didn’t want to speak.

“Graham McKinley,” he blubbered. A web made of glowing strands appeared around his right wrist.

“Shit,” I said calmly.

Polson jerked a little, then slumped onto the desk, dead. The strands faded soon after.

“What was that?” Charlotte asked, alarmed. Carter was calling for medical personnel.

“Polson had made an Unbreakable Vow to not reveal his employer’s identity. That’s why he clammed up so quickly when asked about it. But the Veritaserum forced him to speak – he had no tolerance for it after being dependent on the Elixir for so long – so he broke the Vow and died because of it.”

“What Elixir?” Charlotte said angrily.

“The Elixir to Induce Euphoria. The potion he was on when he showed up today. The symptoms are obvious.”

“You didn’t feel the need to mention this earlier?”

“No,” I replied.

* * *

“How long has he been lying there?” asked Charlotte. On the screen was the perspective of a hidden camera in Harry’s quarters. The man in question lay motionless on his bed.

The technician rubbed his nose and shrugged. “A couple of hours. He does this every day when he’s got free time. He’s not sleeping, just… lying there.”

Charlotte hated the next words to leave her mouth. “Have the room searched while we’re out. I don’t want to be caught by surprise if this is an act, or an illusion or something.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She made her way to Harry’s room and knocked firmly on the door. It turned transparent, startling her. Harry glanced towards her from his position on the bed. His expression was as neutral and unreadable as always.

The door reappeared, then opened inwards, revealing Harry now standing in front of her. He was a little imposing – tall, hard despite his thin build, and with vivid green eyes that glittered with intelligence and forgotten knowledge. She still didn’t know the extent of his abilities, and it was widely agreed in the Ministry that he was likely the most powerful surviving wizard from before the Act. The fact that he’d only been spotted a couple of times over the past few years was even more frightening – he was an expert at blending in and evading the authorities.

It was strange feeling such an odd mixture of fear and respect for a man she had once seen as no more than a scared fugitive trying to stay alive.

Charlotte was determined not to react.

“Graham McKinley’s residence was raided and secured,” she said. “The man is missing, but his house is ready for investigation. I want you to come with me for the first sweep.”

“Sure,” he said, his deep voice betraying nothing.

Charlotte drove him to the apartment herself, with no extra people in the car. It was meant as a sign of trust, but Harry didn’t react.

“I think, if you wanted to, you could tear these gangs to shreds,” she said at a red light. “You know you could easily take apart their operations. You know they wouldn’t be able to stand against a proper wizard.”

Harry was facing away, looking out the passenger window.

“But you don’t care about that, do you?” Charlotte continued. “You didn’t care when you were detained. You didn’t care when I made the job offer, or when Polson put that gun in your face.”

“There was no reason to care,” Harry said tonelessly.

Charlotte was quiet until they reached the apartment.

* * *

I followed Charlotte through the police tape and up a short flight of stairs. At the top, the rest of the investigative team was waiting, including one of the moles.

Mary Page, a short, mousy-looking woman was Carter’s counterpart in treachery, as she provided information to the same gang Polson’s dealer had belonged to. She gave me a friendly smile as I passed her, which was a little disturbing considering she was likely the one to provide the information that led to my assassination attempt.

Graham McKinley’s apartment was well-furnished in that over-the-top way most druglords decorated their homes. There was no unity of theme or coherency in the placement of the many expensive paintings or rugs, and the leather furniture was in stark contrast to the old-fashioned hand-carved table. It was a jumble of high price tags intended to impress, put together in a way that betrayed the owner’s lack of experience with wealth.

“Anything triggering those magical spidey-senses?” asked one of the team members, a man named Frank. His grin faded when I didn’t respond. He was a true believer in Charlotte’s cause, and my refusal to accept his friendship was clearly bothering him. I don’t know why he expected me to accept him like a long-lost brother just because he’d decided to be a decent person.

I wandered slowly across the room and picked up a thin piece of wood from beneath a cushion on the couch.

Nothing changed, but I could feel the team tense up when they noticed what was in my hand.

“Ebony, unicorn hair,” I muttered. “Unyielding.”

“What does that mean?” Charlotte asked slowly, the way a person might talk to a mental patient with a rocket launcher.

“If you trust wandlore, its owner was likely an idealist with many strong convictions.”

“Do you trust wandlore?”

“It’s more art than science. I wouldn’t put much stock in it.” I lowered the wand to my side and turned to face the team again. Four handguns were centred on my chest. Charlotte’s hand was on her pistol, but it was still holstered.

“And here I thought we were trusting each other for the good of the people,” I said dryly.

“Wands are still illegal, Harry,” said Charlotte. “For quite a few years, if you saw someone holding so much as a stick, you shot first and verified the threat later. Now, for the sake of cooperation, please let me take that off you.”

“It’s all yours.”

Charlotte swiftly plucked the wand out of my loose fingers. Out came another zip-lock bag, and another piece of evidence was secured. The team visible relaxed and holstered their weapons. They avoided my gaze and went back to sweeping the apartment. Frank was actually staring at the floor, and I could feel shame flowing off him like heat from a flame.

I felt a kind of cold satisfaction.

“Thank you,” Charlotte said quietly.

“They do realise I don’t need a wand to cause mischief, don’t they?”

“They are fully briefed on wandless, non-verbal magic, and they know there isn’t much they can do to see it coming. But wands on the other hand are a visible threat, and they reacted accordingly.”

“How briefed are they, really?” I asked plainly, and it was clear I wasn’t just talking about the team.

Charlotte led me to the side of the room and lowered her voice. “There are people trained to be _experts_ on Harry Potter. They’ve studied every scrap of data related to you that was found during the purge. All the interrogations of wizards and witches, all the books, letters, Ministry documents seized. During the Act, you were considered a higher priority target than even the Minister for Magic because you held a place in the hearts of every magical citizen. The government was _terrified_ of you because every time you were sighted, their plans were torn to pieces and the Antimagic Enforcement Group was made to look incompetent.”

“Are you trying to tell me there are a lot of people with a grudge against me?” I said with a smirk. “Because I just don’t know what I would do with myself if that were the case.”

“I don’t expect you to care about this when you don’t care about anything else,” Charlotte sighed. “I just want you to be aware that there are still bad people in power. Most of the politicians aren’t a problem – they know which way the wind is blowing these days so they’ve all gone pro-magic. It’s the military types, ex AEG members and sponsors you need to watch out for.”

The potions lab wasn’t in the building, but there was a hidden stash behind an air conditioner that contained a few favourites, including the Elixir to Induce Euphoria.

“We have enough connections between Polson and McKinley to put him away,” Charlotte informed me as forensics took over and we returned to the car. “But as wealthy as McKinley is, I don’t think he’s on top.”

I said nothing.

“I’m aware of the existence of a spell that allows a person to see the last spells used by a wand,” Charlotte continued, unfazed by my disinterest.

“That would require me to hold the wand.”

“I’m sure an allowance can be made,” she said, a tad exasperated. “Besides, I’m sure you have a cache of wands out there somewhere you could teleport to at any moment. Don’t pretend to be bothered by our security measures when you know full well how powerful you are.”

The next day, the apartment had been thoroughly searched, and a time had been arranged for me to use the wand. It was almost funny that they were going to so much trouble to create a controlled environment in order to let me use such a basic spell.

Eventually, I was led by Charlotte into a forensics lab and over to a white table with the wand sitting in the centre. Two lab technicians were there, one working in the back and one observing my actions. Carter and three other members of the team were also waiting. To their credit, they didn’t have their guns drawn.

I stood in front of the table and gave Charlotte a wry look of askance. She nodded, and I picked up the wand. They must have been mentally preparing themselves, because none of them flinched. Their eyes were very focused, however.

“ _Priori Incantatum,_ ” I murmured. The wand emitted a ghostly image of strings of light wrapping around the clasped hands of two men, one obviously Polson, the other indistinct.

“This was the wand that made the Vow,” said Charlotte, looking to me for confirmation. I nodded. “How can we find who it belonged to? Who the other man was?”

“If a spell exists that can retrieve such information from a wand, then I never learned it,” I said. “The other man was likely McKinley, since the Vow was designed to conceal his identity.”

“It doesn’t seem right. Someone smart enough to take that precaution would be aware that I can ask for Veritaserum. Did he know that the truth potion would cause Polson to break the Vow and give up his identity?”

“Do you want me to see if there were any recent spells before the Vow?” I asked.

Charlotte perked up from the thoughtful hunch she had descended into. “Yes, please.”

I repeated the spell, adding a bit more juice and revealing something unexpected.

A ghostly sword slashed through the air, and I intuitively knew what it was.

There were only two people who had ever used that spell, and I was one of them. The other I knew to be dead, which meant…

There were no further spells recent enough to be caught in the effect of the _Priori_. That itself was surprising, as the spell was capable of reporting spells that were used years ago, if cast with enough power. It was almost like the wand was meant to be a message, rather than a mistake.

“What spell was that?” asked Charlotte as I placed the wand back on the table. “It looked combative.”

“A custom spell,” I replied vaguely. “It’s not in any books.” Not anymore, anyway. “It runs you through as though you’ve been slashed with a sword. When this wand cast it, though, it wasn’t aimed at another person. It’s like the spell was cast into the air, just so it would be recorded.”

“A message. One that would only ever be found if we had a wizard on staff,” Charlotte concluded grimly.

The other team members shifted uneasily.

“Do you understand what the message is trying to say?” she continued, watching me pointedly. “And please skip the part where you withhold information to spite us. It helps nobody.”

I had a theory about who could have used that spell, but I was far from certain. I wanted to leave, just Apparate away and check things out, starting with Mary Page’s handler, who was part of the same gang as McKinley and was the reason the whole murder attempt was made in the first place.

Something in my posture must have spoken of imminent movement, because Charlotte gripped my arm.

“Hey. We’re your team,” she said quietly. “Work with us. What do you need to do?”

I eyed her speculatively. I didn’t need to trust her to use her. If worse came to worst, I could just Apparate away and vanish forever. There was no reason not to take a risk with this, especially one that might lead me to someone I thought long dead.

“Can I speak to you privately?” I asked.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you enjoyed the first chapter!  
> More will be coming soon.


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